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Tag Archives: Biological Tapestries
Nate Lewis will have his first solo show at Morton Fine Arts, starting on April 8 (Courtesy of Nate Lewis).
April 2017 solo exhibitions at MFA – NATALIE CHEUNG & NATE LEWIS
31 Mar
NATE LEWIS “Biological Tapestries” reviewed in Washington City Paper
19 Apr
“Biological Tapestries” Through April 27 at Morton Fine Art Artist Nate Lewis’ first solo exhibition cuts deep.
“Cloaked in Fratres Forever,” by Nate Lewis (2016)
Nate Lewis didn’t train to be an artist. Instead, he went into nursing, just like his father.
It wasn’t until his final year of school that Lewis became interested in art—first music, then drawing—as a way to disengage from the stress of the medical profession. For the better part of the last decade, Lewis has been honing his artistic practice while working in high-stakes, emotionally draining intensive care units. He currently works as a registered nurse in the recovery area of the critical care ward at George Washington University Hospital.
His first solo show, “Biological Tapestries,” now on view at Morton Fine Art, features 16 papercut works that blend Lewis’ interest in human healing with artistic expression. “Biological Tapestries” is an outgrowth of the trauma and redemption he’s experienced in his work environment. The works are compositionally minimal, even austere—mostly portraits that are simple and straight on, printed on porous paper in stark black and white. Lewis then sculpts the paper by snipping, slicing, and perforating the silhouette of the bodies to create three-dimensional figures that emerge from the canvas.
Lewis’ medical training and saint-like patience from years of caretaking are apparent in his practice. The paper-cutting process is laborious and detailed; it often takes him up to 38 hours to complete larger works (the biggest piece in the show is only 40 inches by 26 inches). The surgical precision that Lewis employs is, for all intents and purposes, as necessary to the integrity of these bodies as it would be in a real operation—one false knife swipe and an appendage might be lost. The stakes, naturally, are lower when it comes to paper.
Not every paper sculpture depicts a body in its entirety, to various effect. Some of the works come across as a memorial in nature, such as “Save Me This Time,” which features a torso with arms folded across its chest, as if laid to rest, unable to be physically saved. Others are slightly macabre, even if not intended to be so, by focusing on one specific body part—like a singular arm, no body in sight.
None of the all-male figures in the portraits are named, although Lewis’ artist’s statement suggests that they represent the patients and family members he interacts with in the hospital. The delicately layered slashes and densely patterned pinpricks that make up the artist’s paper patients impart a material fragility, as if one more incision could do them in, leaving nothing but shredded paper behind.
Like the injured and ill he cares for day in and day out, Lewis renders himself similarly vulnerable within the series. For instance, “Glio” features a forward-facing portrait of the artist, his face increasingly obscured by leaf-like snips that continue multiplying beyond his head, across the blank space of the page. The title seems to recall a clinical case Lewis perhaps encountered on the job—a quick search for “glio” reveals that a glioblastoma is a fast-growing brain tumor.
By reimagining and embodying the maladies of his patients, “Biological Tapestries” seems like an act of extreme empathy on Lewis’ part. Yet his self-portraits are also redolent of martyrdom. Lewis must methodically puncture, cut, and slice his own body until his features are nearly indiscernible. His process is almost a form of conceptual self-immolation in service of those he cannot help.
But for all of its painstaking craftsmanship and empathic ideals, “Biological Tapestries” lacks the tenderness of real vulnerability and pain. Despite being a series wrought from reflection on moments of intense mortal reckoning and human compassion, there is a certain amount of clinical detachment. The figures—both whole and partial—remain upright and static, their bodies on display like a teaching cadaver. They are beautiful in their design, but ultimately interchangeable.
1781 Florida Ave. NW. Free. (202) 628-2787. mortonfineart.com.
NATE LEWIS featured in DCist
14 Apr
From Operating Table to Canvas, Nate Lewis Finds Intricate Art
(Courtesy of Nate Lewis)
Thirty-year-old Nate Lewis never so much as doodled in the margins of a notebook for the first 20 years of his life. He grew up wanting to be a nurse like his father, so he got a nursing degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2009. Art really wasn’t on his radar.
Towards the end of college, his classes started to wear him out, so he distracted himself during lectures by sketching. His older sister Leah, 32, peeked over his shoulder one day and complimented the work. The following Christmas, she got him some art supplies and a book: Betty Edwards’ Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
From those humble beginnings, Lewis has come a long way. He’s opening his first solo exhibition this Friday at Morton Fine Art, a collection of 14 intricately crafted paper sculptures that present the human anatomy in a variety of forms.
Lewis hails from the small town of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania—population: 9000—where his main pastimes included listening to music and playing baseball and basketball. “I was essentially a jock growing up,” he says.
Nursing appealed to him first as a venue in which he could study science and the human body. Only gradually did he realize that being a nurse meant taking intimate care of people at their most fragile and vulnerable. That scared him at first, but when he embraced the role, he found it fulfilling.
“When you walk into the room at 7 a.m. to take care of these patients, the families just open up with everything to you. You become part of this critical time in their family history,” Lewis says. “You have an intimate relationship and trust with these family members.”
After going through school, he took up work at several critical care facilities, including a surgical intensive care unit and a stroke unit. At that time, his main artistic interests were in music. He took a violin class because his mother was using one at the same time.
“I think that was my art more than anything, just listening to it. I wanted to play,” Lewis says. “I loved the strings, I just loved the violin and I just loved the sound of it.”
Playing put Lewis in the right headspace to start exploring his drawing skills. At first his sister told him to “draw some life”—buildings and other city surroundings. But Lewis quickly found that subject boring.
“Just drawing something to get better at it, I didn’t enjoy it,” Lewis says. “I wanted art to be fun.”
So he followed his muse, drawing increasingly elaborate images pairing an instrument with an organ—a trumpet with a set of lungs coming out, a phonograph made of red blood cells, a pair of brains that doubled as headphones. He brought his sketch pad and pencil to coffee shops near his home, then in Falls Church. It gradually dawned on him that his unconscious mind was simply translating the experiences he was having at work in the hospital, giving shape to the abstract concepts behind the medical procedures he witnessed.
The drawings grew into a T-shirt line, followed by some experimentation with a black pen. Then he realized he could use the blade as a pen to make smaller and more layered designs. By January 2014, he had started making full pieces like the ones he’s now displaying, cranking out as many as twelve per month. The largest pieces—26 inches by 40 inches—can take between 26 to 38 hours to create, Lewis said.
Since then, Lewis has been focused on displaying his creations and, as of October 2014, selling them. All the while, he’s maintained a steady paycheck at various hospitals, including George Washington Hospital, where he currently works in the recovery area of the critical care unit. That job is less emotionally taxing than some of his previous ones, he admits.
Among numerous accolades, Lewis won the regional edition of the Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series contest last year and earned grants from the D.C. Commission of the Arts & Humanities for the last two years running. He’s done shows in Brooklyn and San Francisco, and he placed in the top ten of a contest at the Hamiltonian Gallery on U Street. Through a friend, he sent his work to the Morton Fine Art Gallery in Adams Morgan, which quickly signed him to a contract and supported him at the Art Basel convention in Miami.
Amy Morton, the founder of the gallery, took to Lewis’ style soon after seeing it, according to gallery assistant Julia Bancroft. The mixture of texture and simplicity, as well as Lewis’ local placement, make him a good fit for the gallery’s roster, Bancroft says.
“He’s just hitting it off in the city and gaining some recognition,” Bancroft says. “We’re just really happy to support him.”
Looking ahead, Lewis hopes to slowly make a foray into photography. Eventually, he could see his artistic career dominating his professional life full-time. But he’s in no rush to abandon his medical career.
“It’s scary to think about going from a regular consistent paycheck to relying on selling things that people don’t need. But you’ve got to take a leap when it’s time,” Lewis said. “I’m in no hurry.”
Art serves a meditative role for Lewis, but he’s more concerned with communicating indescribable experiences to the widest possible audience.
“Art has done a lot for me and it’s showed me a lot of things about myself and about others,” Lewis said. “And it’s something that I just need to continue to cultivate.”
Lewis’ exhibition will open with a reception at 6 p.m. tomorrow and run until April 27 at Morton Fine Art (1781 Florida Ave NW). The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m.
NATE LEWIS’ “Biological Tapestries – 1st Movement” highlighted in DCist
6 AprOpening this Friday, 8 April from 6pm-8pm at Morton Fine Art. Don’t miss the opportunity to view Nate’s latest sculpted paper photo prints and congratulate him on his first solo exhibition already destined for great success!
Arts Agenda: Cut Paper Edition
Nate Lewis will have his first solo show at Morton Fine Arts, starting on April 8 (Courtesy of Nate Lewis).
April Arts Highlights
Biological Tapestries by Nate Lewis @ Morton Fine Art. Opens April 8. (Free)
Nate Lewis’ intricate paper sculptures are visually stunning in digital format, but need to be seen up close and personal to truly appreciate the detail. And, because much of this work draws from his experience working as a critical care nurse in an intensive care unit, they also explore the intensity of these life-altering moments, asking the viewer share the fragility and intimacy of the patient’s medical experiences. Stay tuned for a profile of the artist next week.
Morton Fine Art is located at 1781 Florida Ave NW.
NATE LEWIS solo “Biological Tapestries – 1st Movement” opens 4/8/16 at Morton Fine Art
29 MarBiological Tapestries – 1st Movement
Sculpted Paper Photo Prints by NATE LEWIS
Friday, April 8th – April 27th, 2016
OPENING DAY RECEPTION
Friday, April 8th, 6pm-8pm
The artist will be in attendance.
NATE LEWIS, Cloaked in Fratres Forever, 2016, 40″x26″, sculpted paper photo print
EXHIBITION LOCATION
Morton Fine Art (MFA)
1781 Florida Ave NW (at 18th & U Sts)
Washington, DC 20009
(202) 628-2787
mortonfineart@gmail.com
HOURS
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 6pm
Sunday 12pm-5pm
NATE LEWIS, Save Me This Time, 2016, sculpted paper photo print
About NATE LEWIS & Biological Tapestries
“Biological Tapestries is a visual reflection of the competing elements of genetics, the microbiological world, human intervention through medical care, and appeals to the divine which all have a stake in determining the outcome of patients in critical care units.
As a critical care registered nurse I desired to become emotionally porous. I sought for the impersonal experiences of patients and families to become personal and intimate. This resulted in distilling untested qualities of my character and further illuminating areas of my identity.
Through sculpting landscapes of moving textures and patterns on bodies, I attempt to make visible the unseen tensions and competing elements within the bodies that mirror the internal transformations of the patients, the individuals emotionally invested in these patients and myself.
I aim for this work to show the power of freedom within boundaries, and to question to what lengths are we willing to lay aside our pride, comfort, and fear to make room for empathy, within intimate and larger social contexts.” -NATE LEWIS, 2016
Nathaniel Lewis grew up in Beaver Falls, near Pittsburgh, Pa. Born 1985, Nate benefited from the cultural mix of his Trinidad-born father who was raised in Brooklyn and his white American-born mother, raised in Philadelphia. He graduated from VCU with his BSN and has been a practicing critical care nurse for the past five years. He planned to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a certified nurse anesthetist.
In 2013, he started exploring the use of diagnostic electrocardiogram paper in his work, which led him to a more focused study of paper itself. He began sculpting individual sheets of white paper into 2-3d forms. He then started blending his unique approach with paper sculpture to photos. Within the first year and a half of showing his paper sculptures, he has exhibited in Washington DC, New York, Miami, and San Francisco.
Biological Tapestries – 1st Movement marks his first solo. He is represented by Morton Fine Art in Washington, DC.
About Morton Fine Art
Founded in 2010 in Washington, DC, Morton Fine Art (MFA) is a fine art gallery and curatorial group that collaborates with art collectors and visual artists to inspire fresh ways of acquiring contemporary art. Firmly committed to the belief that anyone can become an art collector or enthusiast, MFA’s mission is to provide accessibility to museum-quality contemporary art through a combination of substantive exhibitions and a welcoming platform for dialogue and exchange of original voice.
Morton Fine Art: curator's notes 